Tuesday night was a symptom.  The disease of rot is much worse.  From a TPM commenter, this pretty much sums up the problem, but to carry on with the health metaphor, it doesn't provide a prognosis, or a treatment.  We are in big trouble:

The long term picture is what is most worrying: the damage is extensive. Very extensive. People are under the impression that this is an anomaly (and it is, to be sure) that will be corrected with an election. 

It won't.

The Office of the President of the United States and the entire Executive Branch is completely damaged. It has, within the space of three months, devolved into a putrid mess. If it were a patient, the body is riddled with cancer. 

The Legislative Branch is similarly infected: a decade of non-governance and a collection of the nation's stupidest people has reduced the second branch of government into a cowering shadow of itself. 

And the judicial branch has a stolen seat, forever tainted by the appointment of someone picked off a list by an unfit, unqualified, incompetent scumbag.

All things being equal, a Democratic sweep of 2018 is neither guaranteed nor going to un-do the devastation. You have a party of ugly dystopian Confederates who have shown they can never be trusted. And you have a Democratic Party that is unwilling to confront its own sexism, racism and purity tests because it wants to be "inclusive," when the most lasting damage has been done by people who have a list of demands but never show up in midterms and don't get involved. Hell, as we've seen in the Nevada primary, hardly any of them bothered to register as a Democrat.

Oh, and you have what no voter supression trick could ever accomplish: 56% of eligible voters not bothering.

Oh, and there's more! You have an Electoral College comprised of clearly incompetent delegates who honestly had an extraordinary chance to do its one "in case of emergency, break glass" function and make history. Except, as AJP Taylor noted, history failed to turn.

In the words of Ms. Tilda Swinton to Keanu Reeves in "Constantine": you're fucked.

My idea for a beginning to a solution once the Great Fall occurs, is that all living previous Presidents should form an "Elder Council" and do a temporary take-over.  IMO They should nullify the previous election and declare the popular vote-getter the President.  All appointments made by trump would be nullified, and the Elder Council would remain as an advisory committee going forward.  I doubt that anyone would realistically or honestly object to the Council (McConnell and Ryan don't count).  It would obviously be bipartisan, and would include the only people who understand what is at stake, and really have nothing to lose or gain.

This is an unprecedented crisis, and there is no Constitutional remedy for what has happened.  If what is left of the FBI points to trump collusion, or if their investigation is compromised, the Council should be triggered.